Another Piece of the ... Truck

For a while now, my current goal for the truck was to get the front end suspension completed. When I first started this task, my plan was to degrease it all, then blast it all, then paint it all.

The degreasing went quickly but the blasting is very time consuming. After a few weekends following this plan, I noticed that the first pieces I had sandblasted were beginning to show light surface rust. At this point I altered the plan. The new plan is blast a piece or two and then paint it.

The weekends selection was a lower control arm. The lower arms are significantly larger then the upper arms so only attempted to get one done this weekend. Blast time for the part was roughly two hours. A good bit of that time was sweeping the sand up in the driveway and filtering it through a piece of window screen to remove any large debris.

I currently have enough sand to fill up a 5 gallon bucket. I filled the blaster up four times. Four times I randomly distributed the sand back onto the driveway. After the fourth sweepup, the part was ready for painting.

The blasting was completed on Saturday morning. At this point I went ahead and painted the top side and left it to dry all afternoon. Today just before lunch, I painted the other side.

Another piece is now complete. Next week I will probably tackle the other lower control arm. That that point, the only remaining front suspension pieces I can think of are the coil springs. Blasting should go pretty quickly on those.

Things seem to be moving quickly since I am now distinguishing between steering and front suspension. It is very satisfying to take a rusted greasy part and turn it into a freshly painted clean piece of a 35 year old classic truck.

Someone needs to be taking pictures of the progress!